Lindfield History Project Group

Helena Hall is best known as a local historian and writer. In addition to ‘Lindfield Past and Present’, she wrote a book on William Allen, several editions of the guide book to All Saints Church and a revised edition of the ‘Dictionary of the Sussex Dialect’. However, Miss Hall’s potentially most significant work, her journal of World War II, has not been published. Each day throughout the war, up to VE Day, she kept a diary in which she recorded, local, national and international events. It is a detailed and comprehensive record of the war years. Held at the East Sussex Record Office, it runs to some 4,200 closely written pages bound into 34 volumes

Wartime Journal: selected extracts

Helena Hall on Air Raid Precautions:

16 June 1940, “Cellars in shopping places are now available as shelters for people caught in the streets during a raid. There are two here – one under Master’s shop for 50 people and another under Edmond’s shop for 60. They are intended only for those caught away from home.”

Helena Hall on Rationing:

13 January 1941, “The price of rabbits is controlled but one is seldom able to get a rabbit. There are still no sweets of any kind nor yet any chocolate to be bought. The keepers of sweet shops in the village print on their doors in white chalk ‘no sweets’. Onions are still a rare luxury and there are none for sale in this village.”

Helena Hall on Lindfield Military Camp:

10 March 1941, “Washing tanks and lorries in the pond has now been stopped although the surface is still oily. The swans hate the oil.”

Helena Hall on Village Life:

8 August 1942, “People trying to visit Brighton are to get heavier penalties – full fines are £100 or 3 months imprisonment.”

Helena Hall on the War in the Air:

16 June 1944, “..Most disturbed night for a very long time. There were four warnings at short intervals. On the one o’clock news and from the evening papers we learnt the Germans used pilotless planes.”

If you would like further information on this subject please contact us. Our aim is to publish a book of journal extracts relating to Lindfield.

In 1598 and 1601 legislation was passed which drew together the best of previous laws dealing with the relief of the poor. Under the 1601 Poor Law Act two to four men from the parish, generally tradesmen, were appointed as Overseers, with responsibility for collecting the Poor Rate and distributing the funds among the poor. The poor rate was set by each parish individually, according to their needs. In order to keep the rates down to a minimum the Overseers often made payment to the poor ‘in-kind’. This took the form of flour or clothing, with the Overseers giving out frocks, knickers, gowns, shift (women’s undergarments), stockings, tuck aprons and shoes, along with patterns for making clothes. As well as providing relief ‘out-of-doors’, the parish also took the most needy paupers into the workhouse.

Described as ‘a curious specimen of ancient domestic architecture’, Lindfield’s workhouse was believed to have been the West Wing of the building known today as Old Place, although Figg’s map of 1829 shows that the workhouse may in fact have been located further to the East, in the adjacent grounds. It was able to accommodate 32 inmates, a mixture of the elderly, disabled, able-bodied paupers and orphans. Expectant mothers were taken care of and their illegitimate children delivered at the workhouse. In exchange for their keep the able-bodied were expected to work, either inside the workhouse or being hired out by the master of the workhouse. Pauper children were apprenticed in an effort to provide them with a skill and thus break the cycle of poverty. The belief that the poor could help themselves to stay out of poverty was also evident when William Allen set up an agricultural experiment on the 100 acre Gravelye estate in the 1820s. He provided paupers with the opportunity to rent cottages which had land attached to them, allowing the paupers to farm the land in their own time, keeping the profit for themselves. The intention was that this would enable them to supplement their income and thus avoid needing to call upon the parish for relief.

Charities also played their part in helping the ‘deserving’ poor (those which society considered to be poor without any fault of their own – the elderly, disabled and young) and by the time that the government had recognised the need for reform of the poor laws in 1832 at least three charities were providing assistance to the poor as well as a Benevolent Society. A Friendly Society was also set up which provided a basic insurance against loss of income for those members and their families who would suffer should the wage earner not be able to work as a result of illness or death.

For over two hundred years the parishes continued to deal with the poor by their own interpretation of the Elizabethan laws until, in 1834, the Victorian Poor Law Amendment Act changed the way that local government was able to assist the poor. Legislation led to uniformity across the country and brought in the Union Workhouses in England, made notorious by their appearance in novels such as Charles Dickins’ Oliver Twist.